


Fear

by angerwasallihad



Series: Behind the Curtain [4]
Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Mother!ship, episode 306
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3120320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angerwasallihad/pseuds/angerwasallihad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'No, it was about the fear that prickled in her heart every time she saw Rusty walk out the door. It wasn’t that cold coppery terror that she’d felt that day when she’d broken down the door to save him from Wade Weller all those months ago. It was more like the worry she’d felt for her other children when they’d first gotten behind the wheel for the first time or moved out of the house; but amped up to an almost unmanageable level.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear

_“The era during which it was professionally useful for me to have a wedding ring on my finger is long gone.”_

 

_“In a divorce, I would be entitled to half your savings and half your pension. Given any thought to that?”_

 

_“So you’re ready to pay all the back child support you owe me for the family you deserted?”_

 

_“We were never divorced! Why do you think that I owe you?!”_

 

_“Would you like to experience first hand what the court thinks of child abandonment? Go for it.”_

 

The angry words were still rattling around in the back of her mind all these hours later, hunched over her desk back at home. She’d gone for a run just before dinner, a mostly unsuccessful effort to expend all the pent-up anger and frustration still coursing through her after the day she’d had. Now, sitting before her desk and considering the photos of their yet unidentified victim, Sharon felt like leaning forward and banging her head on the desk several times. 

 

This case was getting to her. She knew that. And it didn’t take a psychiatrist or a rocket scientist to understand why. Months ago, when Rusty had elected to stay after his eighteenth birthday, she’d called up Cynthia, his caseworker and discussed her options. But not long afterwards, Sharon Beck had reappeared, so she’d carefully stowed the idea she’d had back into one of those distant corners of her mind. But when Rusty’s Mother had walked out of his life yet again, she’d started the ball rolling once more. The divorce papers she’d had prepared for quite some time now. But really the reason all this was getting to her right now wasn’t about the paperwork. 

 

No, it was about the fear that prickled in her heart every time she saw Rusty walk out the door. It wasn’t that cold coppery terror that she’d felt that day when she’d broken down the door to save him from Wade Weller all those months ago. It was more like the worry she’d felt for her other children when they’d first gotten behind the wheel for the first time or moved out of the house; but amped up to an almost unmanageable level. Ever since Cynthia had mentioned that Sharon no longer had any legal familial rights where Rusty was concerned, the fear had followed her around like a dark threatening storm. 

 

Looking at the photos of this poor young girl spread out on the desk, Sharon’s mind kept wandering to scenarios in which Rusty was some unidentified young victim with no family, no legal ties to anyone. Lost and unknown forever. Logically, Sharon understood that a situation like that of this Alice was highly unlikely in Rusty’s case. His absence would never go unnoticed like hers seemed to have done. But Sharon loved Rusty like her other children. As a mother. And when it came to worrying about her children, that logical part of her brain was never able to prevail. Those last words she’d thrown at Jack before he’d stormed away were clearly not coincidental. Child abandonment was heavy on her heart of late. And Jack pushed those buttons like no one else. 

 

A door shut rather noisily in the hallway and Sharon heard Rusty coming down the hall again. She looked up briefly as he passed her leaning over the photos from her standing position behind the desk, but remained mostly focussed on the photos before her until Rusty spoke. 

 

“Jack offered me a job today.” 

 

Sharon’s head snapped up. Jack had spoken to Rusty today? This did not bode well. True, Jack had done better with Rusty than he’d ever fared with Emily or Ricky, but his time with Rusty had been very limited, and his behavior today and in the past was anything but reassuring. But Jack never did anything without getting something in return. If he’d gone out of his way to spend time with Rusty today, even gone so far as to have offered him a job, he wanted something from Rusty. And she was afraid she knew what it was. Realizing that she’d been silent a bit longer than was strictly necessary, she fought to suppress any expression of her apprehension or frustration and simply smiled and said evenly, “he did?”

 

“Yeah.” Rusty sat down on the couch, turning slightly to face her as he continued. “He walked me down the street to the law firm that he’s working at, and he pretended to interview me to be his intern for a little while.” 

 

The less than sincere smile had slipped off Sharon’s face as she saw that this story was going precisely where she’d feared.

 

“And then he started asking me a lot of questions about you.” 

 

Rusty’s eyes met hers expectantly as he stopped speaking. Sharon hitched that same smile back on her face trying to laugh unconcernedly and act marginally surprised. “Ah. How so?” Her chuckle fell rather flat, however. 

 

“Well he seemed to think you might be dating someone, which would be news to me…” 

 

Sharon’s laugh was genuine this time. “Oh, me too.” Of course Jack would immediately assume that her desire to dissolve their marriage was about someone else. The idea that it was purely about Sharon and her independence would never have occurred to him. And of course, he would consider the possibility that she was seeing someone else entirely more personally than was warranted. Infidelity had not been one of the driving forces behind their separation; but the double standard Jack was sure to hold her to was not encouraging. Sharon hadn’t been on a date in nearly thirty years (the occasional dinner with Andy was _not_ a date). Jack, she knew, most certainly had. But for him it wasn’t about vows or fidelity or any of the rest of it. Jack might avoid her at every turn, flee from any confrontation with her and carefully maintain a façade of stoic indifference, she knew that the very idea of her even considering moving on did sting him a little. 

 

Bringing herself back to the conversation at hand, she maintained that same smile as she asked, “What else?”

 

Rusty looked a little uncomfortable for the first time, and Sharon’s concern grew. It wasn’t the first time Jack had interrogated one of her children in an effort to get information on Sharon. Ricky was his usual target. Shortly after Sharon had drawn the line in the sand regarding their finances just after the separation, Sharon had come home one evening to find that Jack had arrived unannounced, dismissed the babysitter early, and was grilling their eight-year-old son for information on her social activities. She’d come to expect it after that. But badgering Rusty seemed different somehow, particularly given his behavior in her office earlier. And something was clearly bothering Rusty about the interaction. 

 

“Umm. Well… It’s probably just Jack, being Jack. And you say not to believe anything he says… But he made it seem like you might want to… uh, adopt me?” 

 

Dropping all pretense of amusement, Sharon stared in surprise for a moment. Of course Jack had dropped that bombshell on Rusty to suit his own needs without any regard for the consequences on the young man in front of her. Sharon might plan more than the average person, but with Rusty, this deliberate nature was always to his benefit. A conversation about adoption with Rusty was not something you brought up casually. There was a specific way to do it that would be in his best interests. This was not it. It infuriated her to no end that Jack had once again laid waste to anyone and everyone around him in order to get what he wanted: information on what was the driving force behind her supposedly sudden change of heart. But at the same time, Sharon wasn’t really surprised. 

 

“He told you that?” Sharon’s voice had dropped; it was low, serious, but not angry. 

 

“Yeah. And that it might mean that the two of you would divorce.” 

 

Sharon’s reply took on that quiet dangerous tone that could still silence a room. She hoped it was clear that her rage was not directed at him. “Oh well I am absolutely divorcing him now, no matter what.” If she had doubted her decision at all before her confrontation with Jack earlier that day, that doubt had disappeared. She was sure of it. This most recent act of selfishness assured her that she’d made the right choice.

 

“But don’t do that because of me, Sharon.” 

 

“It’s not about you, Rusty. Jack has just proven, and for the very last time, that he is the most unreliable person on the earth.” His inability to accept or maintain any sort of responsibility for anyone other than himself antagonized her to no end. And he’d finally pushed it too far. She had no desire to go back on her decision. If anything, she felt strengthened by it. 

 

“Aren’t I too old to be adopted? I mean, technically I’m an adult.” Thankfully, Rusty didn’t seem upset by the idea as he shifted the conversation to the real issue at hand. 

 

Still holding the photographs of Alice in her hand, Sharon moved around the desk, making her way over to where Rusty sat. “Okay, well, that is part of the issue here, Rusty, is that um,” she came to sit in a chair across from him, her voice no longer biting with rage directed at her husband. “Is that before, when I was your legal guardian, I had standing to make decisions for you, if you were hurt or you were sick, or you got into an accident, or—“ her voice cracked slightly and she broke off and looked down at the photo of her nameless victim in her hand. “—if you went missing.” Her eyes came back up to meet his, and she let the unspoken scenario, that of his untimely death, hang in the air between them, acknowledged by them both, but never vocalized. 

 

“Oh,” Rusty said awkwardly. He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. 

 

“I was your next of kin. Now, legally, I’m just your roommate.”  She chuckled a little at the absurdity of the word in the context of their relationship. 

 

Rusty still looked conflicted, but surprised at the idea that this was an issue. “God, I guess I never really thought of that.”

 

Treading carefully so as not to push him too hard, but at the same time to encourage him to warm to the idea, Sharon spoke again. “I think of you as part of my family. I worry about you the way a mother worries about her children.” 

 

He seemed to take that in for a moment, then looked mildly concerned as a thought occurred to him. “What do your other kids think about this? Because Jack—“ 

 

“I can’t imagine that Ricky or Emily would object.” She smiled genuinely at him now, he wrath for Jack almost forgotten. The fact that he had indirectly referred to himself as one of her children had not escaped her, and it really did encourage her beyond anything else. There was certainly a need for a serious conversation with her other children, she knew that. But if Rusty could refer to Ricky and Emily as her “other kids,” then it seemed that the battle on his side was nearly won. She really didn’t dream that the other two would put up a fight. The only person who seemed truly opposed to this idea was Jack. And she was taking care of that. Or at least, Gavin was.

 

“Sharon, I have been…working so hard to not be a problem for you anymore.” 

 

Sighing, Sharon straightened in her chair and tried not to roll her eyes as Rusty spoke. _This again._

 

“And I just feel like all of this adoption business makes me a problem for you again.” 

 

Sharon always put on a reassuring face, or even sometimes a playfully exasperated one whenever he started in with all of this. But the truth was, a part of her was so deeply saddened by his need to _deserve_ her love. For so long, he had been conditioned to believe that he had to earn the good things in his life. That love wasn’t freely given. That people didn’t give without taking. That nothing is ever free. Maybe someday, if she reminded him of it enough and taught by example, he might come to understand that she never wanted anything from him. But not yet. 

 

“Rusty, you’re not a problem.” She spoke as earnestly as she could, hoping to finally convince him. “Jack,” she continued, a bite shining through her soft voice once again, “is the problem.” She grinned a little playfully at him. “Let’s just, um, think about this later. And we can—we can revisit this adoption idea when I have had some time to fully flesh out what this would mean. For the both of us.” 

 

Rusty seemed to consider her words and finally nodded. “Okay. But I’m still going to pay you back for everything. Someday.” 

 

Heaving another sigh Sharon reached across the gap and stroked his knee softly. “And I’m still going to say no.” She set aside the pictures and leaned back, her hands returning to her lap. “So I hear you’re trying to make the Louisiana Purchase sound interesting.” She nodded at the notebook in his lap. 

 

“Yeah. But there is literally nothing interesting about it. It’s a big hunk of land that even today, nobody lives in.” 

 

She looked at him skeptically over her glasses. 

 

“Okay, okay. People live there. But they’re all in the middle of nowhere. You couldn’t pay me enough to go hang out there.” 

 

“You know,” Sharon began, a little conspiratorially, “I was pre-law. And as such, I did a lot of history in college. And I think that there are a couple of really cool things about the Louisiana Purchase that you might be missing.” 

 

Now it was Rusty’s turn to look skeptical. “Um, no offense, Sharon, but your idea of interesting could put an entire student body to sleep.” 

 

Sharon pretended to look offended. “Hey now, you’re the one who sat in front of a chess board for an hour straight without moving any of the pieces the other night. And you say _I’m_ boring.”

 

“Whatever.” He handed her the notebook. “What am I missing?” 

 

She opened it up and looked over it for a few minutes. It really wasn’t bad. Rusty was a much better writer than he gave himself credit for. Finally Sharon looked back up at him. “I’m not going to tell you how to write your paper. You know that.” 

 

Rusty smiled a little ruefully. “Okay. So what are you going to do?” 

 

Sharon closed up the notebook and handed it back to him. “I’m just going to point out two things. What you choose to do with them is your choice.” She held up a finger. “The first is just a minor suggestion. Something that might bulk up your paper a little. Take a look at Thomas Jefferson. He was more than just a president. He had some very interesting skills. Not a great advocate for minorities, but still. He could add a little texture to the paper.” She held up a second finger. “Secondly, I’m going to let you in on a little secret that maybe Sister Mary Margaret forgot to mention. History isn’t about dates. It isn’t even about facts or events.” 

 

Rusty let out a sound of disbelief. “Ummm yes it is, Sharon.”

 

“No,” she said quietly. “It’s about why the events matter. What do they teach us? Why is it important to the bigger picture?” Sharon pointed back at his notebook. “Why was the Louisiana Purchase important? What part does it play in the bigger picture?” She looked at him expectantly. 

 

“Ummm well, it like almost doubled the size of the United States at the time?” 

 

“Right,” Sharon nodded encouragingly. “But that’s just the facts. What does it mean? Why is it important?” 

 

He was quiet for a few minutes. Finally, he looked up. “It’s about that thing, right? Where like, the Americans thought it was their destiny to claim all the land in North America from one sea to the other? It’s, whaddaya call it? Manifest Destiny?” 

 

Sharon smiled. “I think that might be a very good idea to incorporate that into your paper.” She yawned. It’s pretty late, so I’m off to bed.” She stood up and stretched. “Don’t stay up too late. Goodnight.” 

 

Rusty nodded and waved vaguely in her direction, now lost in his notes. “‘Night, Sharon.” 

 

She picked up the stack of photos on the table before turning from him. Sharon looked down at them once more, anticipating that wave of fear to wash over her once again. But it didn’t. There was still worry and a little fear as she looked from the photos in her hand to the young man on the couch, but it was no longer debilitating. Because now he was hers. And they both finally knew it. 


End file.
